


The Pink Universe

by criss_cross_applesauce



Series: Destabilization [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23828785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/criss_cross_applesauce/pseuds/criss_cross_applesauce
Summary: What happens when someone who has lived in peace their whole life faces adversity?
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe, Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Ruby/Sapphire (Steven Universe)
Series: Destabilization [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716964
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

The evening sky hangs over the peaceful waves of Beach City’s coast. Steven, Connie, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are all sitting on a picnic blanket on the sand. For a moment to Garnet it seemed like the whole world had paused and then started again. It’s just another evening, but this time they’re discussing the fact that relations between a growing faction of humans and gems are souring. The gem-human hybrids are starting to be seen as monsters by them, even though the hybrids are relatively rare.

Greg’s van is parked nearby the cliff and he’s sorting through his record collection. The smell of salt water and hickory smoke from the portable grill sitting near them fill the air.

“I’ve looked into the future, and it’s going to be very difficult to–” Something catches Garnet’s attention by their home. When she looks there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong, but something _is_ wrong. She tries to run through the various futures, but she can’t. One line becomes 2, becomes 50, becomes 104, and so on until the number is too much for even her to grasp.

She palms her visor to make it go away and holds her forehead. All three of her eyes are squeezing shut as tight as possible.

Everyone is a bit shocked to see her like this, but Connie speaks up. “Is something really bad going to happen?”

“...No. That’s not–” She clenches her teeth and breathes deeply to try to stop the pain.

Amethyst goes by her left side and puts her hand on Garnet’s shoulder. It takes about a minute for her to calm down, but when she does she puts her visor back on. She gets up and points over to the side of the cliff. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about that spot that is not supposed to be that way. I see the number of possible futures exploding out of control in that area. Not all of them are even possible.”

They all look back, but there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

“Is it related to the problems gems and humans are facing?” Steven asks.

“It’s possible, but I can’t say for certain.” She looks at their cliff side home, but now everything is fine. Her future vision has returned to normal and she shakes her head.

“I’ve lost track of where I was going earlier.”

As she described to Steven all those years ago time is like a flowing body of river. They split, they merge together, but they’re always all connected back in the past where they first split off. This time, however, was much more chaotic. It was as if the stream frayed into a seemingly infinite number. Infinite possibilities are nothing new for her, however their probability of any one of those infinite possibilities happening were always infinitely small. 

This time, however, was different. Normally, in future vision there are a few futures which are relatively bright, these are the most likely scenarios. Brighter means more likely, and darker means less likely, but this time all possible futures pulsed with the same impossible brightness. So many of them looped back on themselves. There were even streams that seemed to have just started ex-nihilo, they weren’t possibilities that had split off in the distant past, or if they had they must have split off so far into the past so as to appear like they came out of nowhere, perhaps millennia before Sapphire ever existed since she can’t see anything before Sapphire.

“Okay so we know some of my kind aren’t happy. Maybe we should change the subject?” Connie suggests.

“Is there anything in the future about the sunlight condensers we need to know about?” Pearl asks.

“Leaving the ungraspable futures aside, I do not foresee any problems with them in the overwhelming majority of possible futures. Of course, in those cases when there are problems the engineers find solutions to them.”

Their good friend Peridot is one of the heads of maintenance of these complicated structures. A few months ago she was working on a personal project. Spinel and Amethyst came into a room Peridot made in the barn to work on her project. Apparently she was working on some prototype to help make the condensers more efficient. She took a wrench and tightened something, then she picked up a dropper full of some substance. Before she was able to do anything she heard a knock and turned around.

“ _Oh. Hey! How you guys doing?_ ” 

“ _Sup P-dot._ ”

“ _What are you working on?_ ”

“ _Ah! It’s a secret. For now at least. You guys have arrived at a most wonderful time. I just have a few more adjustments to make before it’s done! Eeeee!_ ” Stars filled her eyes.

She turned back around and positioned the dropper.

“ _Alright! Just gotta add this chemical here… and!_ ”

When it landed her entire machine blew up in her face creating a new skylight and throwing Peridot against the wall. Everyone had started coughing when the entire room was filled with dark smoke.

“ _Okay, okay. Hang on. Lemme find the exhaust._ ” She says through her coughing.

She felt around trying to find the switch and then finally does. She turned around to face them and her entire face was pitch black with her hair sticking straight back from the explosion. She took off her visor in order to clean it.

“ _Sorry about that._ ” She looked back at the steaming pile of slag that used to be her prototype. A piece of wood from the ceiling dropped on it. Putting her visor back on she then picked up a piece of her machine and sighed while slumping her shoulders.

“ _Good thing I made a backup of the designs at least._ ” Peridot holds a communication device to where an ear should be, but it’s not on. “Yes, it’s me. The organization must be behind this.”

Spinel and Amethyst stand there for a moment completely covered in sut.

“ _Hahaha! That was awesome! Do it again!_ ”

Spinel elbows her. “ _Amethyst… Come on!_ ”

“Ugh. Maybe you guys are just overthinking? Things’ll be just fine.”

“Hm. I suppose there’s not much I can do until I figure out what’s wrong with my future vision.” 

Garnet walks to their home. Amethyst heads toward the local pizza joint and Pearl calls Steven 'my diamond', which makes Steven feel really uncomfortable, before going somewhere else, it’s not particularly clear due to her going in a combination of direction that Garnet and Amethyst are going.

Steven looks over at Connie. They both get up. “So, I know I’ve asked you this before, but what are you going to do now that you’ve finished college?”

“Oh, I dunno. I was just kind of hoping I can mess around her for a while.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.” He sticks out his tongue while winking.

“God, Steven I’ve been in school for practically all my life already. Time for a change, at least for now.”

Connie had decided to go to a university ran by both gems and humans. She knew there was no way she was going to give up chances to learn about honest-to-god magic. Steven decided to tag along with her because he was meaning to go to some school for hybrids. Just like earlier he could pass his classes, but only just barely. His strawberry always out-shined him in intellectual pursuits, but he couldn’t be happier for her. Besides, he would ask her for help a lot with his work and she was happy to help him anytime he asked, well except maybe for bedtime, but he was considerate to her so that never came up.

They both laugh. “I miss our adventures, Strawberry.”

Steven pulls her in by her waist. 

“Whoa! Hehe.”

“At least we had other experiences to give each other.” He wiggles his eyebrows in a really goofy manner.

Connie blushes and starts giggling and pushes him. “Steven!”

They smile at each other and then embrace.

“I love you, biscuit.”

“I love you too, berry.”

He guesses _adventures_ is a bit of a strong word. They didn't do anything death defying that's for certain. They mostly just explored old abandoned sites made by the gems, they even explored other planets connected to the galaxy warp, but there wasn’t much in the way of danger. Maybe the odd wild alien animal, but life tends to create similar food-webs no matter where they went and there’s only so much a biological creature is capable of even if the animals were really strange looking.

They feel warm inside, it feels so nice to be next to each other. The other day somehow they had broached the subject of marriage for the first time. There was some discomfort, but mostly due to the fact that it seems so permanent, even if it actually isn’t in the end. Unless, of course, Steven could revive her if she died, but how would that even work? He has never seen such a thing before.

“Feel like going for a walk?”

“With you? Any time.”

Steven offers his arm. “Shall we then?”

She grabs hold of his arm and nuzzles his shoulder. He decided they should go walking through the field surrounding Beach City. Just beyond the horizon was a city filled with gems. It doesn’t take long before they fill their entire view. There are many shimmering spires built by the gems, they’ve been here ever since he was a small boy. His dad said the same thing, those feats of architecture have been with the human race a long _long_ time. Everything between humans and gems have been fine for as long as gems have existed here, what exactly caused the change in attitude in some of them hasn’t been pinned down, yet. 

Connie suggested that it may be ambition, that they had finally reached a place where they think they could achieve many more feats than was ever thought possible, but now are being held back by a foreign presence. His dad thinks it might be resentment for being crowded on the same planet, not allowed to expand as much as they desired. Maybe a more definitive answer could be obtained by simply asking them why, but of course Steven couldn’t do that, not unless he lied about what he is. 

Steven is known throughout the republic, and by extension Earth, as possibly being the long lost leader in disguise, but that’s usually dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

It wasn’t all that long ago that he found out his mother was actually the former supreme leader of all gems, Pink Diamond. She left the throne in the hands of her pearl and announced the new ruler to her people before disappearing with Spinel to live as Rose Quartz on Earth. The last words Pearl ever heard from her were in her broadcast, “ _I am stepping down from the throne and giving it to Pearl, my most trusted companion. I leave you, my people, in her capable hands. So follow her; that’s an order._ ” She had disappeared a few days before that made everyone wonder where she was.

Pearl, eventually after millennia of ruling, left the throne in search of her diamond, but she only found out too late that she had given up her form so that Steven could be born. She had command over a lot of resources and personnel and when she had determined her diamond had flitted off to Earth she also went there as well. However, Pink Diamond was clever enough to evade her until after it didn’t matter. 

When Pearl left the throne to go to Earth she established a republic so that gems could have a say in how things should go and also had no one she felt she could entrust supreme power to. She had no intention of ever going back. When she met Steven she definitely had a difficult time calling Steven, Steven, and not ‘my diamond’. Old habits die hard and it still happens from time to time. Garnet still refuses to believe it and Amethyst is completely apathetic, it’s the same to her either way. Spinel though, she didn’t seem all that surprised. In fact, she didn’t seem too happy for Pearl to be around, not even a little. So she tries to make herself scarce whenever Pearl’s around.

Steven sees something from out of the corner of his eye. Time seemed to slowed down as he turned his head to check, but there was nothing there. _Was it lightning or was it electricity? Wait, how would that be possible without a source of power?_

“Hey, Connie did you see that?”

“Hm? See what?”

“That over the- uh.” He points to where he was looking, but there’s nothing there.

“Are you okay?”

He puts his hand to his face. “Yeah, must just be my imagination.” He says while moving his eyes diagonally down.

They arrive in New Gem’s Chestr. Nobody is quite sure why the founders, a group of amethysts, decided on that particular name, but some have guessed that they decided to look at a map of human settlements. They founders actually thought that Chester sounded cool, but decided to be even cooler and omit the e before the r. Before they wanted to call it Gem Deli, but decided against it because they thought that everyone would think that their city was a giant store.

Near the middle of this bustling city is Bismuth’s home, which looks kind of like a fortress with a moat. Except that the moat is filled with lava instead of water kind of like from that game Fight of Fortresses. She told Steven earlier that this was actually like one of those fountains that reuse the same water, but how exactly she had pipes that didn’t melt from the heat was still a mystery. Trade secret she said.

They knock on her door.

“Come in!”

They push open the door. Without Steven with her Connie would never be able to open this heavy door. Connie tripped over something and fell forward. He helps her up while she mumbles something.

“Hey Bismuth! What are you doing?”

She turns around. “Steven! Connie! Hey! I’m working on my new hobby.”

“New hobby?”

“Yeah! I was looking through some human history textbooks and I saw these very fancy looking metal sticks that people used to beat each other to death with.”

Connie recovers from her slight fall. “You mean swords?” She asks while leaning in and tensing up a little, but eyes wide in anticipation.

“Yes! That was what they were called. I could make you one if you want.”

“Really?!”

“Sure! I’m getting kind of tired being an architect anyway. Come on, I’ll start making it for ya.”

“Wait, r-right now?”

“Well yeah right now, girl! I’m trying to get as much practice in as I can. Come on!”

Steven nudges her forward a little. “Go on.”

She tried to contain her excitement, but she looked like a little schoolgirl again. Steven goes to lean against the wall as Bismuth takes Connie into her new forge.

“Hey, are you coming? There’s room enough for ya and you’re more than welcome to join.” Bismuth said.

“Huh? Oh no I’m fine. I’ll wait here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t long until Steven started to hear the banging of metal. It took until 02:30AM of banging and sizzling before the sword was finished. They come out and Connie is holding her sword in the air looking at how it shines in the light. Then she puts the flat part of the blade in her left hand.

“Wow… This is amazing!”

“I’m thinking of going on that show competition to show off my smithing skills once I get good enough. Hell’s Forge was it? I remember watching one episode and one of the judges was like. Oh my god, look at this piece of shit. This blade is too brittle! Just look at it! He swings the blade against the dead pig hanging from the ceiling, but it doesn’t make even the slightest cut. Are you trying to break my hand with this bullshit? It won’t cut, you donkey! Then he threw it to the ground and it broke into 5 pieces! Hahaha!”

Steven summons his shield and walks up beside his lover. “Now we have weapons that go together.”

“I just need to find someone who will teach me how to use this thing.”

Bismuth puts her hands on their shoulders. “Well, I seem to remember Pink Diamond’s Pearl talking about learning how to swing pieces of metal a few years after she arrived on Earth. It might be a good place to start.”

They walk outside and the sky is filled with stars. The gems always make sure to keep light pollution from blocking out the stars, but this makes everything very dark outside. Human beings don’t value this because they are so much weaker than a gem. Being attacked in the dark might lead to a premature end for a being made of relatively soft tissues. Each has their own beauty. The city with its countless shimmering lights banishing the dark from the night, or the night sky being filled to the brim with stars.

“Come on. Let’s go home. There’s a warp close by.”

“There’s a warp on every street corner like they’re CosMicBucks’.”

“Well that certainly makes it easier to get home then, doesn’t it?”

“How do you keep random gems from warping into your home again?”

“Oh you can change who’s allowed on the warp so that it only accepts requests from specific gems. Each gem has a unique signature, but to be honest it’s more like a locked door than iron clad safety.”

When they arrive inside of his home they walk hand in hand over to his couch. Steven sits in the middle and Connie to his left.

“I really enjoy our time together, bisky.”

“Yeah.” He kisses her on the cheek.

Even though its late they lean against each other and stay that way in a half awake state. It’s a state where the stresses and worries of their worlds seem to dim, burning less intensely. Maybe they’re not in an ecstatic fairy tale ending, but that’s actually immaterial. It doesn’t matter. It does not matter, because they have something so much greater than that: simple peace. Warmth instead of an inferno. A sustainable, lasting, happiness. Something that is divine.

Connie gets a little bit hungry and so gets up from the couch. When she reaches the kitchen she asks, “Do you want anything hon?”

“Naw, I’m good sweetie.”

About an hour and a half later they next to each other with Connie having her arms around his bulky frame and they drift into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Steven finds hisself walking alone through a purple forest. It almost reminds him of an alien biome that he explored with Connie once. He sees a large feline predator cross in front of him, its fur has an impossible blue-yellow sheen. The path winds around and loops back in on itself, and it seems like no matter where he goes, no matter whether he chooses to go right or left, there’s a dead end. 

The trees slowly change into a hedge maze and then back into a forest. At some time he sits down and watches the insects crawl around on the trees and the forest floor. He takes a snack bar out of his backpack, but when he opens it a bunch of butterflies come out and fly away. The wrapper disintegrates in his hand. It kind of sucks that happened because he really wanted to eat that, but can’t win them all he muses.

He gets back up and notices a rock that looks a little bit like a bush which then disappears in front of his eyes. He shrugs his shoulders and then goes back to his walk, he really wants to get out of this forest so he can go have dinner. He looks out of the corner of his eyes at the stranger who has been walking next to him for a while.

“Who are you?”

The pink cloaked figure just simply turns their head to look at Steven. When Steven meets their sight he can’t see any facial details, or even a face. It’s just simply black. The cloaked figure lowers their hood, only to reveal that there was nothing under it the whole time.

“Where is your head?”

“I’m in pure conscious form. Well, not exactly, but pretty close.”

“Wh-”

“Look around you. What do you see?” They outstretch what’s supposed to be their arm. Instead of it being a normal arm it’s a weird metal thing with floating pink cylinders for fingers.

Steven looks side to side. There were many strange geometric patterns, sometimes going in seemingly impossible angles. _Where did the forest go?_ Then, it struck him as he realized the whole sky is completely blank like an empty canvas.

“Where are we?!”

Now that Steven thinks about it, it seems like he’s seen a few strange things as he tried to get out of the forest. The figure says something, but Steven couldn’t understand it. “It’s… It’s best not to question it too hard. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

He puts his hood back up. “Steven, you need to know that some time in the night, two evenings from now, something bad is going to happen.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“There’s not much time left. You have to save her.” They say while fading away.

Steven looks down with his brow furrowing in consternation. He hears a deafening rumble. When he looks up into the ‘sky’ again he sees this distorted swirling image of a floating gem, but it’s enormous. It must be at least 100 meters long, maybe way more. It almost looks like someone forced a bunch of normal gems together. Sweat beads roll down his head.

“…It hurts.” And an entire chorus says in unison– in his head? He thinks it’s in his head. Maybe it’s actually saying it? Nothing makes much sense here.

This incomprehensible being approaches him fast and he put arms up in defense. He fails, and he gets swallowed by this thing. Everything distorts and looks like something out of funland, that is if funland were possessed by something malevolent. He looks at his hands and arms and watches as it gets torn apart. The sinews and bones break apart. His blood seeps out and congeals into little floating packets. Planets, suns, and even black holes themselves, get stretched out so long until they can’t be seen anymore. The universe goes dark and then the entire fabric of reality itself is torn asunder. Steven shoots up in his bed screaming.

Connie is moved and wakes up slightly. “Hhhu. St-”

He hyperventilates like he just ran a marathon.

“Honeeeey ww-asamatter?”

He continues to pant in a cold sweat. She rubs her eyes and reaches over to turn on the light on the bedstand. 

“Steven?” She sits up and rubs her hand around his back.

“I had a horrible nightmare. But… Something about it, I don’t know. It felt _really_ real.”

She looks over at the clock and it reads 5:27am. “Jeez we haven’t gotten a lot of sleep yet.”

“I’m sorry strawberry.”

“Oh don’t worry about it.” She lays her head on his shoulder while putting her arms around him.

Later on Steven opens the door to his room and walks into the living room. The light of day has banished the darkness of the night. He walks over to the gem room door and looks at it. From out of the gem room door comes Spinel. Her hair, with a little bit of shine, is pointed downward in two fluffy ponytails. She also had dark half circles under her eyes making her look eternally sleepy. Her outfit has been the same since before Steven could remember, dark pink to almost red.

“Morning! Or should I say noon? Anyway. What you up to?” He asks.

“Um, I’m just, you know, heading out for today.” She puts her hand behind her head.

“Oh, uh. So where are you going?”

“Nowhere really. Just. Just around!” She forces a big smile on her face.

“Uh huh… Well, you know if anything’s bothering you, we’re here.”

“Yeah. I’ll– keep that in mind.” Spinel makes a fake watch on her wrist and then bulges her eyes out looking at then retracts back like someone yanked a presentation screen back into rolled form.

“Golly, wow! Would you look at the time?!” She taps the fake watch.

“Gotta get going! Bye~!” She runs past Steven and bounces onto the warp pad and warps out as fast as she can. He sighs.

She flies through the warp stream thinking. _Good. I got away before I got caught in a conversation with him._

She wanted to go somewhere to be by herself, but then she realizes that she almost forgot she was supposed to meet someone today, so she changes course. She materializes on the warp pad where she was supposed to meet one of her friends today. Perhaps it’s better that she visit someone instead of mope by herself she supposes. If Steven hadn’t interrupted her she wouldn’t have remembered.

“Hey Lapis.”

“Spinel! You’re here, I wasn’t sure if you were coming or not.” Lapis gives her a hug and lets go and holds both of her hands.

“I can’t believe I almost forgot. Then it hit me because you were excited and all. Your enthusiasm yesterday was uh infectious.”

Lapis shakes her head and smiles. “I got something to show you. I’ve been working on it for months!”

She lets go of her hands, but then leans close to where Spinel would have ears if gems had them with her hand up. “Actually don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been competing with Peridot to see who can make the best morp. She keeps beating me, but this time I think I might have her over a barrel. Hehehe.”

Lapis summons her water wings and scoops up Spinel putting her arms under Spinel’s.

“Woah!”

They go up far into the sky with a lot air beating across their faces. When Spinel looks down and everything looks like it’s getting smaller by the second she feels faint.

“Aaah! I’m never gonna get used to that!”

“Don’t worry! I got you!” She tightens her grip on her a little.

“Urrg.”

“Heh. Sorry.”

“Why couldn’t we have used the warp pad?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Spinel growls a little bit. 

“Ow, don’t be a party pooper. Besides, there’s no warp pad to where we’re going.”

The sky is absolutely clear, a deep blue color filling the sky and the white hot sun standing above. They could see for a great distance. They weren’t anywhere near Beach City. Instead they were somewhere out in the plains and it was flat as far as the eye could see. The only landmarks were the architecture. Some of them were even jointly created by both gems and humans lending them a unique feel different from either endeavoring alone. They fly for a little in the clear sky as architecture gives way to huge fields of corn and wheat. A single big fluffy cloud comes into view and that gives Lapis an idea.

“Come on! Pretend you’re one of those metal flying things that humans use. I’m gonna go through that cloud.”

“O-okay. Like this?”

“Yeah! Here. We. GO! Neeeorrrww!” 

“AH! It’s so dark in here!”

“Don’t worry! I know what I’m doing!”

“Are you _sure_?”

“Mostly… Aw, you’re not gonna fall if that’s what you’re worried about.”

They fly all through the cloud. They fly up and down and all around. It was almost like being in a pool, except it’s a cloud. Both of them are dripping with cloud water completely soaked. When they exit the cloud Spinel has a big and magnificent cloud beard. Lapis moves so that the cloud partially covering Spinel’s face isn’t completely moved away.

“Hahaha! That’s awesome. I so wish I had a camera right now.”

Spinel makes a fake crown on her head and tries to speak with a posh accent. “You shall not take pictures of _the king_.”

“Oh. My apologies, your majesty.” She looks in the upper corner of her eyes with a smile. The cloud is blown away. They both laugh.

They finally reach where they were going to go. The fields of crops had given way to cattle pastures and then just empty pastures. A huge crystal fortress comes into view. Its tall walls glimmer in the sunlight. It’s like one of the many gem cities on Earth, except that it’s devoid of any color except white. It was originally a giant hole in the ground, but Spinel didn’t know that.

“WOW! What is that?”

“Oh, you know. Just your average run-of-the-mill ice castle.”

They start their descent down behind the walls. Wind blows across the ice and if gems had thermoception they would both be shivering. Somehow, Lapis had made the ice such that it wouldn’t be completely blinding when sunlight hit it.

“Ice?! That thing’s made out of _ice_? How is it not melting?!”

“Well, ice is a mineral. And it has a crystalline structure.”

“Ice is a mineral?”

“That’s what Peridot told me. So I guess it must be true.”

There are many buildings around and they take inspiration from all sorts of ages from both gems and humans. From the golden age of the gem empire to the modern age of humanity. Statues that seem to reach for the sky when one looks at them from the ground are peppered all throughout this place.

“Wait, that still doesn’t answer anything though.”

“I dunno. At this place I just make water into ice and then it just stays like this.”

They walk around the empty town that Lapis made out of pure water. It was clear that Lapis had poured her heart, and a lot of water, into putting in even small details. In lots of places there were grape vine looking crossing lines. There were also circles and plenty of details that just pop out at one’s eye. For the longest time Peridot and Lapis competed against each other making all sorts of statues. 

Sometimes Lapis made watercolor paintings and usually Peridot responded by painting an oil painting. Each of them had become skilled at creating details, but watercolors can’t immitate the boldness of oil colors. Even though Lapis’ works were beautiful in their own right, she couldn’t help but feel just a little envious. Truth be told she become enamored with the technician’s crafting skills.

About 4 months ago she found a giant hole in the ground in the middle of a pasture. Maybe it was a sink hole or maybe an impact from a meteor from millions of years ago. In either case it seemed to Lapis like the perfect spot to start her latest morp, except it would be the largest morp she ever made. First thing she did was go down to the gulf of Tlaxcala and pull an immense amount of water out of the ocean. Unfortunately, this made a large portion of water very salty for a little while and killed most life in the area. It was very surprising to the farmers when they saw a huge floating body of water go over their fields.

“So what do you think?”

Before Spinel could answer someone else answered.

“I think it’s quite an achievement.”

“Huh?”

They look around to see where the voice had come from. 

“I know that voice…”

A short shadowed figure walks out from behind one of the buildings and then light shines upon them revealing a very familiar green skinned being.

“Peridot?! What are you– You’re not supposed to be here!”

Peridot closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Lapis Lapis Lapis…”

She holds out a device that looks kind of like a tv remote with many shining multicolored buttons and weird symbols. There is even a slow spinning jagged antennae on top of it. Lapis walks up next to Peridot and looks at it. 

“When you first started making all this ice it had already started to melt. That’s why I built a machine underground. To keep this place from turning into a lake.”

“You knew the whole time?!”

“Uh yeah?”

“Ah! Peridot, you _jerk_!” Lapis punches her shoulder lightly.

“Hey! You should be thanking me! Your work would have been completely ruined without me.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to– oh nevermind.” Lapis crosses her arms and makes a pouting face.

Peridot had actually followed Lapis all those months ago. She evaded her sight using one of her new gizmos which grants invisibility. Manipulating it so that the rays of light of Peridot’s body didn’t reach Lapis’s eyes was a piece of cake due to the fact that a gem’s body is a light projection. 

“Making all these gizmos. You sure are a super nerd.” Spinel says while snorting.

Peridot frowns a little.

“Aw… I’m sorry. Here lemme make it up to you.” See launches her arms forward and snatches Peridot. She loses her grip on the remote, but Spinel catches it with her hand and puts it gently on the ground. She holds Peridot closely to her and then gives her a big sloppy kiss on almost her entire head. This gives Peridot’s hair a cowlick.

“Ewwww!” Peridot responds.

Lapis starts to crack up and tries to stifle a laugh.

Later in the evening Steven warped over to Empire City. He was walking down the streets watching the bustle of humans and sometimes gems. Unfortunately, he bumps into a crowd of people. That’s when he started hearing someone cry out in pain. He pushs his way into the crowd only to find that 5 muscular guys are all kicking and stomping on one guy. A woman in a black dress was with them and she was about to stomp on this man with a stiletto heel. Steven steps forward.

“Hey! Stop what you’re doing!”

“Yeah? And? The fuck you gonna do about it big man?”

“Ah.”

The six of them leave their victim alone and start approaching Steven. He steps back a little, but when he looks down at the man who is bloody and beaten he steps forward and summons his shield.

“Don’t make me have to use this.”

“You think a magic trick gon’ scare me?!”

Steven’s gem starts glowing through his shirt.

“Wait. He must be one of them hybrids!” He points at the glow coming from under Steven’s shirt.

“Fuck man, I ain’t fuckin’ with one of those!” Another says while tripping over over hisself and the two turn tail and run as fast as they can.

“Hey! Get back here you damn wimps! Tsk. Scared of some bullshit magic trick. C’mon let’s thrash this bitch!”

Steven hardens his stance as the man lifts his fists with brass knuckles. The other two follow suit. The three run toward Steven with the first man launching his right fist forward. Steven steps back somewhat and blocks all of them with his shield. The one to Steven’s left side realizes it can’t be a magic trick because that as soon as his fist connected with the shield he could feel the force reverberate up through his arm. The other two don’t notice he is backing away because they are too busy trying to get past Steven’s shield. He walks backward past the woman in black.

“Hey! You’re not a pussy too are ya?” The woman grabs onto the man’s arm with her sharp fingernails. He pushes her off of his arm.

“Man fuck this. Y’all do whatever you want. I’m gettin’ the hell outta here from that mothafuckin’ demon!” He turns around and runs as fast as he can.

Steven takes his fist and tries not to use too much force as he punches the one with brass knuckles in the face and this causes the man to fall backward to the ground. He slams his shield into the side of the other man and keeps hitting him until he’s hit the ground. That man gets back up and runs away. The man with the brass knuckles picks hisself up from the ground and wipes the blood from his mouth. He tries to kick Steven, but Steven jumps and slams his shield into the man causing him to fall down again. He is breathing deep and fast. He gets back up and again and runs toward Steven, but Steven punches him in the chest and this time he flies back and is slammed against a street lamp causing it to rattle somewhat.

“Don’t make me have to do that again!”

The man clenches his teeth and then says. “This– isn’t over.” 

He struggles to pick hisself off the ground, but manages to stand up. As he passes the woman that was with them she taunts him. “Why do I even stay around you pathetic losers?”

“Shut up.”

Her heels click against the sidewalk as she follows him. He limps away into the darkness.

All of the bystanders stare at him and then a number of them step back. One of them, a woman with blond hair, looks at Steven in disgust and walks away from the crowd before calling someone on her cellphone. Steven walks over to the man and while he does he sees a strange person in a cloak in the corner of his eye. When he looks over he sees that there was no one there and the people where he looks recoil. He crouches down and licks the palm of his hand and puts it on the beaten man. Bones and bruises get healed and his normal color returns to his face.

The man squeezes his eyes and then slowly opens them. “Hhuh?”

“You’re okay now.”

Steven offers his hand and the stranger takes it. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Steven walks away from the man after helping him up. He walks back to the warp, but while he does he can’t shake this crawling sensation. It’s like someone is shooting ice cold arrows into him and he has the feeling of breath on his neck. This makes him look around at his setting, but he doesn’t see anyone he recognizes. The woman who was disgusted by Steven is actually following him, but she blends in with the deluge of mostly people and some gems.

Steven looks up at the building containing the warp pads for this human city. It’s a sort of round dome and a lot of modern architecture jutting from the sides. The lights of Empire City reflect off it. It was actually a goodwill gift from Empire City to the gems that live in the city. He pushes open the glass door and a blast of air hits his face.

There’s a desk to go to before someone can use the warps. Steven walks up and shows his gem and his shield. The receptionist looks up from her magazine for a moment and then silently motions him to go on in. The technicians of the warp pads here was so impressed by this building they decided they would let humans use the warp pads here. Of course it a was a one way trip unless you had a gem tour guide. Otherwise, there was always a gem standing outside of each room to man the warp pads. The blond haired woman that was stalking him watches as he goes down a hallway and disappears from her sight. There are many rooms to choose from, but Steven just chooses the one closest to him.

Steven looks over at the gem standing against the wall.

“Oh, do you need my help?”

“Nope, I got this.” Steven lifts his shirt up again.

“Sweet. Well, go on in then.” She goes back to leaning against the wall playing with her smartphone.

Connie is sitting on the couch reading a new book she got when she hears the warp pad turn on. She looks up from her book and see Steven has come home.

“Welcome back. How was Empire City?”

Steven sighs. “Everything was fine until I saw these 6 thugs trying to seemingly kill a man. I stepped in to fight them off, but eventually they all fled.”

She throws her book to the ground and moves up to him as fast as she can without tripping. “Oh my god! Steven! Are you okay?” 

She grabs onto to his shirt.

“Yeah. I’m alright.”

Connie hugs him as tightly as possible. “Oh thank the stars. I don’t know what I would do if I ever lost you.”


End file.
